Next Big Sound (a/o May 24th):
The trend of mobile and social gaming has pulled a significant amount of developer talent away from traditional consoles. But for many, there's still nothing like playing games on a TV, and OUYA is trying to bring gaming back to the living room. With Kickstarter funding of over $6 million (and still a week to go), the company is introducing an Android-powered gaming console. The goal is to make it cheaper for developers to make games, and for players to buy them. The Kickstarter description reads, 'Developers can wave farewell to the roadblocks of bringing a console game to market. Anyone can make a game, every OUYA console is a dev kit. No need to purchase a license or an expensive SDK. It's built on Android, so developers already know how it works." In addition, VEVO has announced that it will launch on OUYA, contributing its entire catalog of 50,000+ music videos, live concerts, and other programming.
Spotify is going on tour. The company will be making stops at numerous cities around the country, and featuring up-and-coming artists. "As part of a partnership with Bacardi, Spotify's Big Green Bus will be making stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Miami, with more pit stops along the way," Mashable first reported. Some of the artists that have been announced in the lineup are Kendrick Lamar, YACHT, Grouplove, The Henry Clay People, and others. The tour kicks off in Los Angeles on August 8th. Spotify is also creating an 'On Tour' Facebook app, which feature videos and updates from the tour.
Fresh off a landmark of one million mix listens, Thefuture.fm, an Internet radio platform and mobile app geared towards electronic music, announced the addition of a few industry veterans to its team. Michael Wenzel, previously YouTube's leading frontend developer, is now Chief Development Officer. Nic Luciano of GetGlue, is the company's new CTO. Finally, Chris Nagy was announced as the Senior VP of Marketing and Sales.
Stephen Colbert announced his own music festival, with a hilarious portmanteau of a name. StePhest Colbchella '012: RockAugustFest will be featuring bands like The Flaming Lips, Fun, Santigold, and DJ Grandmaster Flash, amongst others. "Folks, if you watch this show on a regular basis, then you know that I am a big player in the music biz," vaunted Colbert, referencing his Grammy award for Best Comedy Album. "And folks, I know all the latest hottest bands like Bonnarroo and Lollapalooza... those guys are great." Last year, Colbert hosted Jack White, Bon Iver, and Florence & The Machine, amongst others. This year's show will be held at NYC's Intrepid Museum on August 10th (Colbert: "Does Bonnarroo have cruise missiles? I think not.") Tickets are available today via Colbert Nation.
Adidas just launched a new ad campaign called "All Original Represent". The accompanying TV advertisement features Nicki Minaj (who provided music for the commercial), Big Sean, Korean pop star 2NE1, and other celebrities in major cities around the world.
The latest Soundscan chart-toppers are out, with Zac Brown Band's Uncaged holding the top spot at 48,278 sales for the week. Second is Nas' Life is Good (45,038), followed by Gaslight Anthem's Handwritten (40,327) and Passion Pit's Gossamer (37,298). Rounding out the fifth spot is Kidz Bop 22, with 35,282 sales. This week's first place spot is inching awfully close to the sad record of all-time lowest selling number 1 album, which was set by Cake last year at 44,000 units.
Glenn Galen - Minneapolis Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Which means, according to the famous chart about how much you have to see to make the minimum wage in a month, 48,000 CDs a year is only about twice the minimum wage..
...and that's for a #1 album.
Visitor Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Oh, I see it was for the week.
OK, so that's better, but it's not Beatles-era #1 money by a long shot.
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